A wave of melancholy is sweeping through the world's of fashion and culture. We focus on the rise of the grown-up Emo and the reasons behind it

Slideshow: Celebrities who love the emo trend

Supermodel Agyness Deyn rocks the pale and interesting look with jet-black hair, kohl-rimmed eyes and pale skin at a party in New York City last month

Photograph: Evan Agostini/AP

When Rosie, an advertising project manager, bought tickets to see the xx for
her friend's 30th birthday, it was because "it was the album I'd been
playing on repeat for the past four months". Live, the three-piece from
southwest London didn't let her down. Rosie, agreeing with many xxstatic
music journalists, described the gig as goose-bump-inducing atmospheric — "The
lighting went hand in hand with the music to create a mood that was just
really moving" — and said the crowd were "older, in their
late twenties and thirties. And then there were all these emo kids outside".

Hold on, the emo kids were outside? The term may conjure up images of
teenagers in tight jeans and scruffy Vans, with side-swept fringes artfully
placed to cover their acne, but the popularity of a band such as the xx (all "embarrassed"
by their success and needing to be left "really alone" to write